Get Ready For School: Prepare For Your Back To School Routine

Get Ready For School

Summer is a great time of freedom, but as the new school year approaches it is time to start winding down the late nights and lazy days and get back into a routine. There are a few key things that you need to do to get yourself and the kids ready for routine of the upcoming school year.

Bed Time

Perhaps the biggest adjustment for most kids is the need to get to bed at an earlier time now that they are about to head back to school. In the summertime it is easy for parents to be loose about bedtime and many events, vacations, or long weekends tend to put the kids out of routine.

However, the bus is going to show up bright and early so a week or two ahead of the first day of school it is time to get the kids back into a routine. Instead of starting abruptly with an early bedtime, try to step it down. If the kids normally go to bed at 9:00 during the school year but are used to 10:00, step down 15 minutes every couple of days until they have hit the 9:00 mark just before school starts. It will help them to feel more energetic in that first week of school.

Study Habits

Let’s face it, in summer most people do pretty much what they want at night when there is no test coming next week. Parents and kids alike may have fallen into a routine of watching television or playing video games at night. While that is fine during the summer, it is a habit that must be broken before the first day of school. When kids get home from school they need to have the discipline to complete their homework.

A good way to prepare for this is to make sure you are introducing some quiet time every night for the kids to just read or even draw. Try to keep the electronics turned off during this time. The idea is to get the family used to some brain time without too many distractions. Changing from this time to a study hour will be a much easier transition than going directly from movie nights to homework.

Morning

Yikes, your morning routine is all over the place in summer, right? Getting mornings under control before school starts will save you some headaches in those first few weeks of the new school year.

To be ready, get into the routine of eating breakfast and getting the kids dressed first thing in the morning. If you’ve been letting them wear pajamas until mid morning during the summer now is the time to change that. Get the kids used to dressing, brushing their hair, making their bed, and whatever else you would expect before they head off to school.

Now Get Ready

By using the days or weeks before school starts back up to change these few things you can give yourself and your family a better chance of having a smooth transition to the new school year.